


Tattoos

by violenttulips



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Harry has tattoos, Hinny Brotp, M/M, POV Draco Malfoy, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:27:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29369253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violenttulips/pseuds/violenttulips
Summary: It's been two years since that awful day, and Harry has changed since the last time they saw each other. Harry has tattoos, for one thing. For another, Harry hates him. Again. Can Draco fix everything that has happened between them?
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 82





	Tattoos

I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't have come in. But the gossip out on the street had made it irresistible.

Harry Potter is in there. Yes, inside the club. Harry Potter is back from Merlin knows where, and he's in there. _Anyone_ could just go in and _talk to him._

I don't _have_ to talk to him, I tell myself as I consciously make this monumentally terrible decision. In fact, it's better if I don't. He doesn't need to see me, I can just observe. See if it it's true, see how he looks, see if he's alone, torture myself endlessly if he isn't...

I spot him after only a few seconds, out on the dance floor with Ginny Weasley. The way they're dancing is completely friendly and platonic and a little bit silly, if I'm being perfectly honest. She laughs as he spins her away from him, holding his arm high in the air to twirl her around and around until, looking more than a bit dizzy, she collapses against his side in a fit of giggles. He's laughing too, looking happy and free, and a part of me shrivels up inside.

Ginny points at someone across the room, and Harry follows her finger with his gaze, then looks down at her with a skeptical expression and shakes his head.

She tries again, this time landing on a sandy-haired blond who is eyeing Harry up from a seat at the bar.

The glimmer of interest in Harry's eyes makes me clench my fists in silent fury.

He nods, and she grins. Ginny tugs at the hem of his shirt, and Harry gives her an exasperated look. After a few seconds of nonverbal arguing, Harry pulls his shirt over his head and hands it to her, pointedly rolling his eyes.

My throat runs dry at the sight.

Harry looks... different. It _is_ Harry Potter, mind you, _my_ Harry Potter, and let me tell you, his body has always been a fucking masterpiece, but now it's also covered in _literal_ artwork. I can't see more than dark, vague outlines and colorful shapes from this distance, but fuck, he's _beautiful_.

"Fucking hell," I murmur aloud.

The blond at the bar clearly likes what he sees, too. He licks his lips and gives Harry, _my_ Harry, a seductive smile and a stupid little eyebrow raise over his drink.

Harry hesitates, looking nervously back at Ginny, and she smacks him right on the bum and lightly shoves him toward the bar.

A glass orb that's glowing with purple light above them explodes in a burst of accidental magic. _My_ accidental magic? ...Possibly. Who can say for sure?

Everyone in the vicinity ducks and looks around fearfully. Harry has wrapped himself around Ginny protectively, a glimmering Protego Charm already in place, his wand drawn as they look for any sign of a threat.

Ginny blanches when she spots me standing a little ways off, and Harry follows her shocked gaze.

His Shield Charm drops.

As the others around them relax and start moving again, the threat clearly nonexistent, Harry slowly stands and tucks his wand into its leather holster on his thigh, the way the Aurors all tend to wear them, his movements oddly rigid.

Ginny squeezes his arm and says something in his ear. He shakes his head, and she presses his t-shirt into his hand, then releases his arm and walks away, giving me a hard, appraising look as she passes by.

I don't know how or exactly when, but I've crossed the space between us and Harry and I are now standing just a few feet apart, and I _can't_ stop staring at those bloody _tattoos_.

There are so many, and they're moving slowly across his skin... it's actually difficult to focus on just one, but I _want_ to. I want to catalog them all into my memory. I want to trace them with my hands, my fingertips, with my tongue...

He's been watching me impassively as I openly stare at him. No, not stare, _ogle_. Merlin, this is embarrassing.

I lick my lips and glance back up to meet his cold gaze, eyes as hard as the emeralds they so closely resemble in color.

Right. He hates me.

He crosses his arms over his chest. "What do you want, Malfoy?"

The words are familiar. My memory flicks back to our first time, just over four years ago. Has it really been that long?

"What _do_ you want, _Malfoy?"_ Harry's tone is different in the memory, teasing and lighthearted. I'd gasped as he pressed open-mouthed kisses over my throat before catching my lower lip in his teeth. "Tell me what you want."

We'd been in the kitchen, and his gaze had traveled between the sofa in the living room and the open door to his bedroom, a clear question in his eyes.

"I—"

Harry had kissed me again, with that fierce intensity that he'd always had, and I'd had to fight to get a coherent word out. "Want you...Mm... _Harry_. I want..."

"What?"

"Bedroom," I'd gasped.

We'd shucked our clothes off with alarming speed, laughing at ourselves as we did, and clambered into his bed, frotting to a spectacular finish, then exchanging blow jobs and bringing each other off a second time before curling up together and falling asleep.

It's one of the few memories I have from my life that I would classify as a perfect moment.

I'm hurtled painfully back to the present by Harry loudly clearing his throat. " _Malfoy_."

My eyes fall on the patch of skin where his neck meets his right shoulder, the spot where his first tattoo had been, his _only_ tattoo the last time I'd seen him, and it's conspicuously missing, a blank section of tawny skin surrounded by gorgeous moving artwork. I don't blame him for having it removed, I _can't_ blame him, but it still stings to see it—the physical evidence that he's moved on.

My voice finally returns to me, coming out raspy and strange even to my own ears. "I— I shouldn't be here. I'm sorry."

And then I turn and bolt, weaving my way through the crowd and heading for the exit as fast as my legs will carry me.

Outside, I run around the side of the building into the dark alley and lean against the wall, gulping down the chilly air and wiping hot, angry tears away from my face.

"Draco?"

 _Circe_. Can this night get any worse?

Harry has pulled his shirt back on as he followed me out, and now he's standing hesitantly at the end of the alleyway, calling me by my given name, and it's all just too much. I let out a choked sob, doubling over as if I've been sucker punched. It feels like I have.

I hear his footsteps crunching over the gravel as he steps closer, and attempt to regain some composure, taking a shaky breath and drawing myself upright. He's standing right in front of me; looking angry and confused and more than a little lost.

"Why are you here, Draco?"

"I just...I wanted to see you." The truth slips out in an agonized whisper.

He swallows hard, the anger in his eyes fading away as they fill with a grief that matches my own.

_"Why?"_

And Salazar, I didn't think my heart could break any more than it already has, but I swear I can feel it crack and shatter like glass all over again when Harry lets me see that heartache. _I_ did this to him. To us.

"I— " Pain spasms through my chest, as if the shards of my broken heart have lodged in my insides like shrapnel.

I reach out and touch his cheek, and I'm surprised again when he leans into it instead of shoving me away. I'd deserve it if he did.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," I choke out. "I am. I ruined everything. I don't expect you to forgive me, but I do want you to know how—how sorry I am."

I drop my hand and turn to leave, gasping sharply when he catches my wrist in a vice-like grip.

"Don't. Don't run again." Harry's voice is low and hoarse and familiar, and when I turn to face him I'm already throwing my arms around his neck and opening my mouth to accept his kiss.

It's messy, and intense, and Harry still kisses with his entire _being_ , and he tastes of Firewhisky and smells like _home_ and warmth is spreading inside me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

Our lips meet again and again, desperate and hot and _—oh—_ his tongue is tracing the inside of my mouth and he's cupping my cheeks in his hands, and my fingers have found their way into his thick hair, cut shorter than he used to wear it, and he's tracing my cheekbones with his thumbs, and it's absolutely perfect and I never want him to stop.

But eventually he does, letting go of my face and staggering back, and I open my eyes to find myself looking into blazing viridian eyes that pierce right to my soul.

"Draco," he gasps, breathless, " _What—?"_

"I love you," I blurt, and his kiss-swollen mouth drops open in shock. "I'm still in love with you. I never _stopped_ loving you."

He swallows and clenches his eyes shut. "I don't know if I can... You _left me,_ Draco. Two years together, and you didn't even wait a _day_ before you got engaged to someone else."

"I know," I say, hot tears prickling behind my eyes again and making my voice shake. "I know. But if you let me explain, if you—"

"If I _what?_ " Harry seethes, his temper flaring again, "you'll just go get divorced and suddenly everything will be fine with us? Everything will just go back to the way it used to be?"

Fuck. I'm shocked speechless again. He doesn't know. What the hell? _How_ doesn't he _know?_

"I didn't get married, Harry," I manage to croak out.

" _What?_ "

"I tried to owl you...and the scandal...it was all over the papers...I thought you knew. _"_

Now _he_ looks physically ill. "I couldn't stand to be here, Draco. I left a few days before your wedding. I—I went to—Godric, anywhere I could think of—Romania. Bulgaria. France. Australia to stay with Ron and Hermione for a few months, and then I volunteered to go take a training course at MACUSA for ten months that Robards wants to try and implement here for new trainees..."

"Romania?" I ask in a small voice, as my thoughts immediately begin to spiral out of control. Of _course_ he went straight back to his ex. _Of fucking course he did_. They're probably back together now, and they'll get married so he can be part of his stupid surrogate family of gingers for real, and they'll adopt a dozen freckly ginger babies to raise together, and I'll be miserable and alone in my stupid fucking mansion and nothing will ever be good again...

" _Draco_ ," the sound of my name snaps me back. Harry's eyes are surprisingly kind, and a little concerned. He knows where I went—his brief relationship with Charlie Weasley before me has always been a sore spot. "It wasn't like that. We didn't...nothing happened."

"Oh." Okay. So. No need to spiral, then.

"The dragons on the reserve reminded me of you, actually." He smiles weakly. "I needed to get away, and then I didn't want to come back, and I... I only got back a few weeks ago, and I just assumed..."

"I was happily married? Off making little Pureblood babies?"

Harry nods slowly, a vulnerable expression flitting over his face.

"He threatened you," I say, losing control of my stupid fucking mouth again.

" _What_?"

"My father. If I didn't marry the Greengrass girl. He threatened to...to send someone to hurt you. I spat in his face. I didn't believe he really had the resources to make that happen from Azkaban. But then you were attacked in Diagon Alley a few days later, and even though you were fine, I just couldn't...everything I said that day, when I left, it was all a lie. I was trying to protect you. But when the time came I couldn't go through with it. I couldn't marry her."

I'd even failed at following through with my plan to protect him. I'd ruined everything for absolutely nothing. And fuck, I don't think I've ever hated myself more.

Harry stares blankly at me. "I'm an _Auror_ ," he says, looking puzzled.

"You weren't at the time! You were just a trainee!"

A small smile creeps onto Harry's face, and he tilts his head to one side. "Point."

"It was still the wrong decision," I add, and his eyes soften further. "I should have told you. We could have worked it out...I just...I panicked. I loved you _so_ much. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you because of me."

He steps closer and cups my face in his palms again, and I feel the slightest glimmer of hope fluttering desperately in my chest. "You tried to tell me. To explain."

I nod.

"I got your letters, but I...I was so angry, Draco. I never opened them. I'm sorry."

He's trying to take some of the blame, trying to ease my pain and guilt even though he doesn't deserve any of it. Bloody hero.

"Harry..."

This time, the kiss is softer, slower and sweeter, but it still sends heat coursing through my body. I'm clinging to him, my fingers twisting in his soft t-shirt, his hands dropping down to bracket my hips. He pulls me flush against him, hands sliding around to firmly cup my arse, and I realize he's just as hard as I am as we both groan at the contact.

 _Merlin help me_.

I'm dizzy with desire, and Harry, _my_ Harry, is kissing me again, and I _want_ him. No, I _need_ him. Right now.

Lucky for me, Harry seems to feel the same way. He reluctantly drags his mouth away in an attempt to regain some control, pressing our foreheads together and panting softly as he looks into my eyes. "Come back to mine?" He asks, looking hopeful and suddenly a little shy.

As if I could ever, _would_ ever, refuse him. "Yes." _Yesyesyes_. _Please_.

He turns us to Apparate on the spot, and we whirl away to an unfamiliar flat. Well, unfamiliar in that I've never been there before, but the thrum of Harry's magic powering the Wards, the pot of broomstick polish on the kitchen table, the empty box of takeaway curry on the counter, the crimson Auror robes strewn over the back of a kitchen chair, the copy of Quidditch Quarterly tossed haphazardly on the sofa, it's all so _Harry_. Unfamiliar and familiar, all at once.

"Do you want something to drink? Tea, Butterbeer, Firewhisky?"

I shake my head and smile. "Show me your tattoos?

He grins and pulls me into another kiss.

***

Harry is drifting off, lying on his stomach, relaxing under my hands as I trail my fingers over his back, watching the Phoenix preen at the attention. Her long tail wraps over Harry's hip and curves around his right arse cheek, ending just inside of his thigh, and it's the sexiest thing I've seen in my entire life.

I can't resist. I bend down to press a kiss to the crease where the feathered tail curves, where his bum and thigh meet. Then another, and another, kissing and sucking up to his lower back until Harry grunts and lifts his head up off the pillow with a sleepy whine.

" _Dracooo_."

"Hm?"

"What're you doing?"

"Admiring you."

He pauses. "D'you... Is it okay? I know I look different from before—"

"Turn over."

Harry rolls onto his back, and I crawl over him to straddle his thighs.

"Harry, you're perfect. They're beautiful." I run my hands over his chest. "I'm just sad I missed you coming home with each new one. Do you remember when..."

My eyes fall on the side of his neck again, where that first tattoo used to be.

"I surprised you with it," Harry smiles at the memory, "Got it during my lunch hour and came home with it after Auror training..."

"And we had sex for _hours_ ," I drawl. Another perfect moment from my memories. Not unlike tonight...Is it still night? Or early morning? I'm not sure.

"Yes we did," Harry chuckles.

He reaches up and draws me down for a sweet kiss, and then I stretch out over him, slotting our legs together comfortably and burying my face against the other side of his neck, bringing my other hand up to trace over the now-blank patch of skin with my thumb like I have hundreds of times before, before it was blank.

Harry brings a hand up to cover mine, and whispers, "watch."

I lift my head as he says more clearly, tapping his index finger against his neck, " _Ostendo_."

The Glamour lifts, and one by one the stars that make up the Draco constellation reappear, twinkling softly against his dark skin.

My throat is tight, and once again I'm uncharacteristically lost for words.

"I couldn't get rid of it," Harry says softly as I reach out to touch. He turns his head and brushes his lips over my wrist. "I wanted to, but I could never bring myself to do it."

"I..." I don't know how to respond. Words still don't seem adequate.

"I love you," Harry tells me, eyes glowing like embers as he flips me onto my back and presses a kiss to my forehead, "I love you." My cheek. "I love you." My nose. "I love you." My chin. "I love you." My eyebrow. "I love you." My other cheek. "I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you." Three kisses against my lips in quick succession.

He peppers my face with kisses, as his declarations devolve into senseless babble, until I finally break down and shove him off, unable to hold back my laughter any longer.

I run my fingers through his hair and capture his lips in another lingering kiss.

"And I love _you_."

I do. I love him with all that I am, and I'm never letting go of him again. In fact, I'm never letting him leave this bed.

Well, except maybe to go get a few more tattoos. 


End file.
